Beatles FAQ

The melody for YESTERDAY came to Paul McCartney in a dream but in other respects it was the most complex Beatles project until that point.  McCartney worked on  the  song for 18 months. He was still writing the song during the filming of Help!. This irritated director, Richard Lester so much that he banned him from playing the then Scrambled Eggs on the set.. George Harrison was similarly unimpressed, remarking ‘Who does he think he is? Beethoven?’  The Arrangement When George Martin suggested adding strings, McCartney was uneasy (‘No vibrato, George. I don’t want to sound like Mantovani!’). Realsiing this would be unnatural for a modern string player, Martin followed McCartney's instructions when writing the part but then asked him to help supervise the arrangement, knowing that this would demonstrate the issue. ‘As a result of which,{McCartney} added the cello phrase in bar 4 of the middle eight (1.25–27) and the first violin’s held high  A in the final verse....

The melody for YESTERDAY famously came to Paul in a dream in January 1964. At this time he was lodging with the Asher family, in the attic of their home in Wimpole Street, near the Abbey Road Studio. I woke up with a lovely tune in my head. I thought, That's great, I wonder what that is? There was an upright piano next to me, to the right of the bed by the window. I got out of bed, sat at the piano, found G, found F sharp minor seventh - and that leads you through then to B to E minor, and finally back to G. I wonder what that is? Suspecting that he had subconsciously plagiarized the melody, McCartney tested it out on musically knowledgeable friends. It rang no bells, not even with George Martin, a walking encyclopaedia of popular song. Eventually it became like handing something in to the police. I thought that if no one claimed it after a few weeks then I would have it.